Calzone Pugliese — Baked Pizza Dough Turnover with Onion and Olives

Puglia — calzone pugliese is found throughout the region but is most closely associated with Bari and the Bari province. The onion-olive-anchovy filling reflects the Pugliese Mediterranean pantry: the flavours of the Adriatic (anchovy, olive) combined with the agricultural interior (sweet onions). The baked calzone distinguishes Puglia from the fried Neapolitan tradition.

Calzone pugliese is not the fried calzone fritto of the Neapolitan street tradition but rather a baked, large turnover of leavened pizza dough filled with slow-cooked sweet onions, black Cerignola olives, salted anchovies, and capers — a preparation that is simultaneously a bread, an antipasto, and a meal. The filling is always vegetable-based in the traditional version; the onions are cooked until completely sweet and caramelised before they go inside; the olives and anchovies are the salt and umami notes. Baked in a very hot oven until the crust is golden and blistered, the calzone is then rested and eaten at room temperature — it is never a hot emergency food but a prepared, considered preparation.

Calzone pugliese at room temperature has the best texture — the crust is golden and slightly chewy, yielding to a gently caramelised onion filling fragrant with olive and anchovy. The anchovies have melted into the onion; the olives provide occasional bursts of concentrated flavour; the capers add acidity. Sliced in thick wedges with a glass of Primitivo di Manduria, it is the Pugliese antipasto that requires nothing else.